Forbidden Fruit
by MegaKat
Summary: A prequel to The Crowning Curse, by AnaFrost. Having been Serenity's nightguard for years, Raditz is her most trusted companion when her king rides off to war. But in the king's absence he refuses to leave her side, even with the full moon approaching... and some pent up emotions work their way to the surface... Due to confusion, let me clarify... NOT Usagi! Usagi's MOM!


**Oooooh, yush. It's definitely rated M, yall! MWUHUHAHAHAHA… so, since AnaFrost was kind enough to humor me and make Serenity and Raditz a pairing in The Crowning Curse, I of course, had to do a smutty as fuck get-together side fic. It won't be long, of course! Warning in this chapter for language and the usual level of smut. Fair warning, next chapter will touch on a little bit of oozaru friskiness… they're FREEEEEAKS.**

**OH! And here's a link to Ana's fic, it really is VERY good! GO READ IT!**

** s/8913399/**

**R&R YALL!**

Serenity sighed as she heard a boot scrape against the stone of the doorway, which was always his way of announcing his presence. He never had to; he moved so silently that he could have been there and she would have never known it, but Raditz had always done her the courtesy of letting her know that he was watching her. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

The newly married queen shook her head slightly and sighed as she gazed out into the rainstorm. "He's a week late. He should have arrived by now, Raditz. I'm beginning to worry that something may have happened."

Her nightguard nodded and shrugged as he joined her at the sill, his Saiyan body heat warming her against the chill in the air. "This storm came in from the direction of the battlefield, Majesty. It's likely that the king and his men got bogged down in it and are fighting their way through the mud up the road. Add to that any wagons that they may be travelling with and they're very probably stuck; this kind of rain for this long would turn any road into a quagmire. It'll put them behind by at least two weeks."

Serenity jumped and tried not to squeal when lightning struck less than a mile away and the immediate thunderclap shook the castle. "Damned thunder," she whispered into Raditz's muscular chest when he held her tightly. He'd always done that whenever there was thunder; he knew how much she hated it, how much it terrified her, and for no good reason, either. She'd simply been scared of it all her life.

Raditz fought the urge to purr when her scent hit his nose; she was afraid and he could smell it as always, as his damned stupid stubborn beast was rising to the surface all of a sudden, urging him to properly comfort her with some sort of distraction by way of mating. He fought it down for the millionth time during the last two days.

He should have left when he'd felt the first urge in a month to throw her down and claim her, just as he did every month during the two or three days before the full moon when his beast started to get antsy for sex. He was able to resist it and ignore it any other time of the month, but during those few days it was damned near maddening and he'd learned right after she'd turned sixteen to take his leave a couple days early and find somewhere far, far away to endure his change and his rampages.

But he couldn't leave this time, not until the king returned. He wouldn't leave Serenity without a male to watch over her while his liege was gone, even if that meant going through the change during the full moon and getting himself killed for being a Saiyan. At least he'd die with his honor intact, having not left the queen unguarded. And while he'd be dangerous to anyone else, he'd never be a danger to her. His beast had imprinted on her years ago, when she was sixteen, four long years after she'd started her woman times and he'd been assigned as her nightguard by her father.

Another bolt of lightning laced across the sky and Serenity whimpered as she clung to him tightly, her eyes squeezing shut as the thunder shook the room again and assaulted her eardrums. "Come on," Raditz urged, leading her away from the window and into her chambers.

Serenity let him coax her into the bed, but shook her head when he sat in the chair next to her. Another crack of thunder had her shaking, and Raditz sighed before removing everything but his trousers and sliding into bed with her. It was always like this during storms, and if no one was there to hold her she'd wind up trembling and staying up all night.

Once in the bed and snuggled up to her, Raditz's beast reared its ugly little head again and roared with need, but the guard managed to leash it. "Raddy? You're shaking; are you alright?" Serenity asked softly, her breath ghosting over his chest.

"Fine," he managed with a swallow. "Get some sleep, Sere." Yeah, right. Like his beast was going to let its intended mate get _any_ sleep that night. He needed to get out of there and fast, before he did something that would put his head right on the execution block and tarnish his name for centuries to come.

He waited until she was dozing, but when he tried to slip out she tightened her hold on him and mumbled something under her breath, jumping slightly at another thunderclap. "Please don't go," she whispered.

"Sere, I have to go," he ground through his teeth. "Please, I can't explain, but I have to leave this room."

The queen stubbornly shook her head in her state of half-sleep and snuggled tighter to him under the blankets. "Raditz?" She asked slowly, coming awake at the feel of… _something_ pressing against her lower stomach.

"Need to get out of here," he replied hoarsely. "Please Sere… can't—can't fight—"

Serenity gasped when he ground what could only be a massive arousal into her stomach and he buried his face in her hair, drawing in her scent as his chest began to… what in the hell was that noise!? "Are you… _purring_!?" Her eyes went wide as he groaned and nodded a little; only _Saiyans_ purred!

And Saiyans were basically feared and loathed throughout the kingdom as beasts in human bodies and—wait, no. This was Raditz! He'd been her nightguard for seven years, and he'd _never_ acted like an uncouth animal. Ever. He'd always been kind and gentle, had always been there for her when she needed him. He'd even read her stories as a child before he'd tucked her into bed and snuggled in beside her for the night. "You were never planning on telling me you were Saiyan," she realized aloud.

"No. The less people that know, the better," he rumbled into her hair. "You can't tell anyone, Sere. Now let me go and let me get out of the room. It's too close to the full moon, and my inner beast—that animal inside of me—wants you. I've wanted you for years, but it's too hard to fight the urge this close to when I go through my monthly change."

Serenity just stared at him as she processed all of this, and got stuck on the most obvious tidbit of information. "Years!? And you never resigned as my nightguard!?"

"I'd never trust another to protect what I hold so dear," he sighed. "I thought about it, trust me. For a good long time. But in the end I just couldn't do it, Sere. I love you too much to trust your safety to another." He growled and shook his head, his purr ceasing as he thought of the king taking his place in her bed at night. When he'd gone to war, Raditz had secretly wished for him never to return; his beast was a jealous one, alright. "Now let me go, Sere," he ordered firmly.

Serenity shook her head a little and kept her arm around him, not only touched by his words, but concerned for his safety. "And what happens when I turn you loose, Raddy? Are you going to rampage like I was taught?"

"No, not tonight. On the first night of the full moon. Now let me go," he ordered a second time, "before I do something that you'll regret." Raditz groaned when she shook her head again, and his beast won out, lowering his head to hers to capture her mouth in a searing kiss while his purr started up once more. "Sere… need to… order me… leave…" He whispered between kisses. "I'll… take you," he added in warning.

He'd get hurt or caught or worse, she knew it in her gut. If she let him leave, she'd wind up regretting it for the rest of her life. But she couldn't… simply couldn't do… "Raditz, I'm married," she whispered hurriedly. "I can't. _**We**_ can't."

"Then order me to go," he breathed hoarsely, his purr intensifying as he feathered his lips up and down her throat, completely aware of the way her chin was subtly tipping up to provide him better access. That complete act of submission—baring her throat in total trust to the animal inside of him—set his purr to vibrate at a whole new level as he licked and nipped and scraped his teeth over the creamy skin. "Can't leave on my own," he continued, "it's too hard, Sere. You have to order me, and maybe the beast will listen."

The queen opened her mouth to utter the words but they didn't make it past her tongue. Even her mind seemed to be halfway onboard with this whole thing; how many years had she wondered about him, wanted him, dreamed about going to bed with him as more than just her nightguard?

Those dreams had started when she'd been sixteen, and it wasn't as if they'd never kissed before. She'd woken him up with one after one of those dreams; in it he had kissed and touched her with such heat, had worshipped every inch of her with his lips and hands, but the dream had ended just as he'd moved to take her.

At the tender age of sixteen, Serenity had kissed him upon waking from that dream, her hand cupping his face as her mouth simply pressed to his and her tongue just barely touched his lips to taste him. And he had tasted heavenly to her, even better than he had in the dream, and he'd returned it after several moments, too.

She could still remember the sigh that had escaped them both as his mouth had begun to move over her own, how skillfully he'd kissed her. That had been her first kiss, and it had been with a man that had clearly known what he was doing.

And she'd been absolutely enthralled as his tongue had parted her lips to taste her in return and she'd submitted to him, wanting more of that warmth that was already built between her legs and low in her belly as a result of that horribly arousing dream.

Her soft moan of pleasure had woken him though, just as he'd truly deepened the kiss and had begun to devour her mouth with his lips and tongue. Serenity remembered all too well the smoky look of desire in his eyes as he'd opened them and looked down at her; in that moment she'd wanted nothing more than to pull him down for another kiss and submit to whatever it was that men and women did in the dark.

That look of desire had been immediately replaced with anger, though, and she recalled how quickly he'd rolled out of the bed and how he'd yelled at her and sworn to resign as her nightguard if she ever tried a stunt like that with him again. And no amount of apologizing had calmed him that morning. She'd kept her distance from him the entire day, and it was a week before he'd sleep in her bed again and not on that cot across the room.

But she'd wanted him since then, gods yes, but she'd never kissed him again, never so much as touched him in a way that could be construed as more than friendly. "Raditz… stop," she whispered.

Her nightguard did as she commanded and groaned a little as he looked down at her. Raditz had been hoping—despite the consequences—that she would stay silent, would let him continue, would simply submit to his beast and let him take her to his heart's content. But no… it was wrong, and they both knew it. "Please tell me to leave, Sere."

"I want an answer," she sighed. "You said you'd wanted me since I was sixteen. But when I kissed you that morning you screamed and yelled at me and wouldn't talk to me after that all day. I wasn't married, then. You could have—"

"No," he grunted, "if I had it would have put my head on the block and left you with no one to protect you. And I was in control then, Sere. I'm not right now, and I won't be for days. So unless you tell me to go, I'm going to have you whether you like it or not."

Serenity caressed his face with the back of her hand and sighed. "I've wanted you too, you know. I kissed you that morning because I'd woken from a dream about you. It ended though, before anything actually happened… and I've wondered how that dream would have ended if I hadn't opened my eyes."

"Don't say it, Sere," Raditz growled, one of his hands bunching in the sheet beneath her. "I won't stop if you say it."

Serenity leaned up to brush her lips over his and moaned softly as he returned it with the heat that she remembered from three years ago. "Show me how the dream should have ended, Raditz."

With a groan and a hitch in his purr, Raditz kissed her forcefully in an attempt to convey every ounce of need and desire he'd felt for her for years as he stripped her of her dressing gown to completely bare her. Only then did his beast lose some of its intensity and slow down a little to worship its intended mate properly; it wanted nothing more than to hear her moaning with pleasure and begging him for more.

The queen whimpered as his hands slid along her body and simply touched and savored her as he continued to kiss her passionately, his purr so loud that it filled the room and made the bed tremble a little. Even the king hadn't been this tender and thorough with her on their wedding night—he'd been gentle and kind, yes—but he'd obviously not known much about how to please a woman in bed, despite his sincere efforts to try and give her some semblance of pleasure before he'd taken her innocence.

Raditz, however… he knew what he was doing. Or maybe she was just so deeply in love with him that it didn't matter if he did or not; maybe she just wanted him so badly that everything he did felt wonderful and perfect.

"Want you now," he whispered, "want you so badly it hurts, Sere." He groaned as she lifted her hips slightly, her hands threading through his hair to pull him back down for another kiss as she hooked a leg around his waist. He had enough presence of mind to check her, and when he found her wet and slick and ready for him he hurriedly unbuttoned his pants and kicked them off as his tongue continued to duel with hers.

Serenity gasped into his mouth when she felt him pressing his entry, and one of her hands moved to his lower back to press down in encouragement. "Don't stop," she ordered softly as she broke the kiss to feather her lips over his neck and jaw. "Make love to me, Raddy… show me what it's supposed to be like."

"Did he hurt you, beloved?" He asked gently as he pushed past some tight resistance inside of her and began to slowly fill her, stopping whenever he met more of that tightness that was having a hard time accepting his width.

"No, of course not… but it wasn't… it wasn't like I'm sure it will be with you, Raddy," she answered breathlessly, lifting her hips once more. She wanted all of him, and the way he kept stopping had her wanting to roll them so she could simply take control and thrust down onto him roughly.

"Dear gods, what am I doing?" He whispered against her shoulder as his beast began to fully take over. Raditz's lips were already curling back to bare his sharper-than-normal canines, and his hips were slowly rocking into hers, making her whimper softly against him. "Serenity… be mine," he moaned, followed by a long graze of his teeth over her shoulder.

"I've always been yours, Raditz," she breathed gently, followed by a choked noise of pleasure as he moved a little harder. The queen then cried out at a brief flash of pain in her shoulder that was immediately followed by intense pleasure, and her eyes rolled back in reaction. She was spiraling up, the pleasure intensifying to a level she'd never known, and before she could ask what was happening she was yelling his name and clinging to him tightly as she came for the first time ever.

"Again," he growled, biting down once more and sucking on the fresh mating mark just to make her hips buck. "Bite me when you're coming, Sere," he ordered hoarsely, offering his shoulder as he lifted her hips and moaned at the way she was beginning to tighten around him for a second time.

So in the thralls of passion, Serenity didn't even question the statement, and the moment she felt that wonderful ecstasy crashing over her, she clamped down on his shoulder mercilessly and was rewarded with the taste of his blood and a rough cry of rapture from her nightguard's throat.

She was coming a third time as he erupted into her with a purr and a low possessive growl, whimpering his name as she dug her nails into his back just as hard as he was clutching her hips. She was sure to have bruises in the morning, but she wasn't even aware of the fact or concerned over whether someone would wind up seeing them.

Raditz eventually managed to raise his head a little to look at her in the dim lighting, and swallowed in anticipation when he found her eyes closed and his new mate shaking, her porcelain shoulder dripping crimson down to the swell of her breast. "Sere?"

"Shh," she whispered, pulling him back down for the gentlest of kisses. "Just let me enjoy this, Raddy."

He sighed with relief at the sight of her lips twitching up in a tiny smile, and couldn't help but bend his head to lap up the little trickle of blood, purring happily when he reached her mark and she gasped in surprise. "Feels good, I know."

Serenity opened her eyes then and looked over to see the deep puncture marks in both of their shoulders. "Shit… guess I'll be careful about what I wear so I can cover that."

"It'll heal fast, don't worry," Raditz grunted.

"And just _what_ is _it_?" She asked curiously, fairly sure there was some sort of Saiyan meaning behind the matching bites. "Does that always happen when you make love to a woman?" Funny, though… she didn't recall ever seeing a bite scar on his shoulder before… and the man was _covered_ in fucking scars.

Everywhere.

"Just you," he replied seriously as he met her gaze. "You're mine, Sere. I asked and you accepted." Raditz sighed, but wasn't at all surprised to see anger in her eyes as she rolled out from under him and glared daggers his way.

"I didn't know I was accepting anything! Let me guess!? You're about to tell me that this is some sort of Saiyan marriage!? I'm already married, Raditz!"

"You **wanted** it! I fucking **warned you**, Sere! I **told** you to order me to leave, and **you** told **me** to make love to you!" Raditz shouted, baring his teeth savagely in his frustration. "**Gods, you women are so fucking confusing!**"

"I never said I didn't want you," she hissed, "but it sure as hell didn't involve bigamy! I can't be married to two men at once and you _know_ it, Raditz!"

His beast took over one hundred percent just then and he snarled at her ferally. "No, you can't! And you're _not_, woman! You're mine and no one else's, and I'll break the neck of any man that dares to touch what's _**mine**_!"

At her very first sight of the animal coming out of him, Serenity backpedaled to the edge of the bed and covered herself in some sort of futile protective instinct, her hands trembling as she clutched at the sheets.

His beast huffed in anger and frustration and sagged at the sight of her fear; damn it, she was his mate, she didn't know the first thing about Saiyans, and she sure as hell had no clue what she was saying. Or how he would react to it. "I'm sorry," Raditz grumbled, staying away from her as he moved out of the crouch his inner Saiyan had put him in and sank down to sit in a nest of covers. "Hard to control those impulses this close to the full moon. I'd never hurt you, Serenity," he added softly. "I'm not even capable of it. A Saiyan warrior cannot harm his mate. No matter what."

"At least that's reassuring," she whispered after a long moment of silence, once she could speak without her voice shaking.

"Come here, Sere, please. Let me hold you." Raditz sighed in relief when she slowly came to him, and the moment she was wrapped in his arms and he was drawing in her scent, his purr came out again in full force. "I love you," he breathed into her silver hair. "I have for a long time, Serenity."

The queen nodded and echoed his sigh. "And I you," she replied. "But what will we do, Raddy? You'd really kill the king? I mean… legally, he has every right to me, even if a Saiyan marriage overrides that among your kind."

"He'll never be able to touch you again now that I've claimed you. You're my mate, and my beast will go completely insane if another man attempts to take you. I'll kill him, Sere…" Raditz sighed dejectedly and shook his head. "We're totally fucked."

"We'll leave," she said flatly. "Gods, the uproar that'll cause… but that's what we'll have to do. We'll run away somewhere so far that they'll never find us, and we'll start afresh in a land where no one has even heard of myself or the king. We'll go as soon as the storm breaks; we'll pack a few bags and hide them somewhere ahead of time, and we'll pick them up on the pretense of just going for a ride. And we won't come back."

Raditz could already hear all of her thoughts through the newly forged bond, and it took everything in him not to laugh at her. "And where would we live, woman? _**How**_ would we live? Your hands aren't made for tilling and plowing. Or even washing clothes to earn money. Sere, we'd be _poor_. Any child we had would likely die of starvation or illness. It's not like living in the castle."

"But… but you taught me how to—"

Raditz rolled to her side and studied her seriously. "To live off the land. Yes. In high summer, when there's no trouble foraging for something to eat. What about when winter comes, Sere? The only place we could run to would be the mountains, and that's a harsh, unforgiving climate, even for a man alone. It's no place for a woman, and it's definitely no place to raise a family."

"Fine, then," she snapped, sitting up in the bed to look down at him. "What's your ingenious plan then, Raddy!? Let me guess, you're going to run away by yourself and never come back, and leave me here alone and in love with you, never to see you again?" Tears filled her eyes as his face answered her question without words.

Yes, that was exactly what he was planning. He was going to leave her there and ride off to keep himself from killing the king.

"We'll be alive, Sere. More importantly, _you'll _be alive. If something happened to you… I'd lose it. That rampaging you learned about from your tutors? That's what would happen. I'd be unstoppable, and Turles would likely be the only that would be able to kill me and put an end to the mass-murdering spree that I'd go on." Raditz sighed and shook his head as he sat up, guilt washing through him like some sort of horrible nasty tidal wave. "I should have never done this, Sere… it's all my fault. My honor be damned, I should have left yesterday when I felt the beast taking over. I should have just left you alone with another guard."

"It's done, Raddy," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder to try and give him some comfort. Serenity could feel thoughts foreign to her own in the back of her mind, depressed and angry, and wondered if this was what he'd meant when he'd said something about completing the bond when he'd ordered her to bite his shoulder. "That's you I hear, isn't it?"

Raditz merely nodded and stared down at the covers on the bed for a long moment before speaking. "I'll leave as soon as the storm breaks, Serenity. Or when the king returns. Whichever comes first. And hopefully… someday, you'll be able to forgive me, beloved."

"Raditz?" Serenity asked softly.

The Saiyan guard looked over to her with sad eyes and huffed a little. "Yeah."

"Shut the fuck up and make love to me again, before I shove you down and take what I want."

"Excuse me?" Raditz asked hotly. He stopped when he realized that that had been her intention—to get him mad so that he'd stop 'moping' as she called it in her mind. "And I'm not moping!"

"Oh yes the hell you are. I know moping when I see it. And you. Are. Moping. Like a little girl. You're not going anywhere, and that's the end of it. At least, not without me. And if you do leave, I'll follow you on the fastest damned horse I can find and I'll catch you up in less than a day."

"You wouldn't dare," Raditz growled softly. "Woman, if you even think about—"

"Already thought about it. And I'm a much better rider than you too; I won't have any trouble at all tracking you either, since you taught me to track an animal when I was thirteen. And tracking one of our horses should be pretty simple, what with all the mud from the rain and the engravings on the royal horseshoes. Unless you plan on actually trying to run one of the horses unshod. Which would just put you on foot after a day, either leading a lame horse or putting it out of its misery." Serenity smiled, knowing she'd won when the thoughts in the back of her mind—his thoughts—merely turned to fantasies that involved strangling her or tying her up and leaving her on the bed in hopes of getting a huge head start on the fastest horse in the stables. "Raditz, you haven't won an argument with me since I was fourteen. Just give it up."

**Mmmm…. Smutty Raditz. Never gets old. Next night is the full moon and things get very um… interesting. :D **

**And again, a link to The Crowning Curse.**

** s/8913399/**


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